Kelleytoons

Yeah, it was good for me (not sure how Maximis feels about it, but isn't that always the case with the distaff side?)

Salman -- that is all very sage advice, particularly the writing to appeal directly to Ford's sensibilities. As someone who worked in government for many decades, I can tell you that there is the "letter of the law" and that there is always wiggle room. IOW, even someone who has to play by a lot of rigid rules can find a way to do something if they really want to do it. Writing a powerful personal story in an effort to get a "human" on the other side of the dock is always a good idea. Conversely, if someone really wants to give you a hard time, they generally can.

Doc -- don't think he's confused. Like I said, it does NOT show on my screens the way it shows on yours, and the tech confirmed this is correct for all the latest versions. So perhaps YOU are confused <bg>. (It happens to me all the time -- mostly a function of getting older so I don't really mind :>). Laurel -- going in isn't any big deal. But if your dealership isn't a place you feel comfortable, go somewhere else. There isn't a monopoly on fixing the C-Max, at least in terms of dealerships. Any Ford dealer can and should do the warranty stuff for you and it *should* be the same. Even if you had to drive an hour it might be worth it just to get to a place you like (our dealership is 40 minutes away and when the day comes that I don't like making the drive I'll go to our local dealership which is only about 8 miles away).

Eve -- glad I could make you feel good about your age. Given the age of your grandchild I suspect we are of the same generation (or close). My daughter (who has five grandkids) is also in the medical field, as a respiratory tech (she started late in life with her career, after the kids, or she probably would have been a doctor as well). I guess you startled me, though, with your worries. At our age, worrying is the LAST thing we need to do (I just enjoy the fact I get up in the morning and don't have to run off to work but can play all the tennis this old body can stand :>).

No, I suspect what the tech meant was you aren't running the latest NAV software (unless you have A5 -- do you have it?) Like I said, I do NOT have those sound volume options you have -- they don't exist anymore.

I can't comment on the C-Max in the snow (I don't do snow anymore which is why I'm in Florida) but I will say that I get a definite ego boost out of the C-Max (although I doubt that's what you meant to type).

Laurel, You should take it to the dealer (after first making sure you have the latest SYNC firmware as well as the NAV firmware I reference above). Mine is fixed now and after turning the car off and starting up three times (and taking three different trips) the voice volume stayed correctly low. So I'm confident this new firmware does indeed solve the problem. It's now just perfect (I can hear Maximis say the street turns and yet have my music up loud -- only thing that isn't *perfect* would be if she would pause the music like she does when "listening" instead of just muting the music volume while she talks).

So today I took a short (maybe three or four miles) trip to the drugstore to pick up some drugs (mostly legal :>) and sundries and only got 27.3 mpg. However, it was the *best* 27.3 mpg I ever got. To begin with, I had to pull out onto 27 from our development which is a challenge in and of itself. Traffic zooms down that highway at 65 mph or faster (in a 55 mph zone) and there are few breaks during most of the day/night. Usually I wait for one of those breaks, but as I got up to the highway I realized I could get out in front of the oncoming traffic because I had that kind of acceleration -- mpg be damned! So I did, with plenty of room to spare, getting up to 65 before the car behind me could reach me (he was annoyed someone got out in front of him, but even though he changed lanes I was going faster than he was by the time he got to where I *would* have been so he never caught me). Then I pulled into the drivethrough pharmacy and had to wait a LONG time -- over ten minutes -- for whatever was taking the trouble in front of me. But I didn't care -- I left the car running so I had A/C (it was 90 degrees and a cool 72 inside the car) and listened to my tunes. Beautiful girls (Sara Gazarek, Stacey Kent, Dinah Washington) singing sweet songs of love to me in the nearly dead quiet of the cabin provided me with bliss and joy, and I was almost sorry when I had to pull up to get my own stuff (of course all of this was on battery power only). So 27.3, but a wonderful time that would have cost me MUCH more in our Durango (probably would have been lucky to get 9 mpg or even much less -- or had to turn the air off and suffer for 10 minutes). Coming back I got 51.5 on the same route, so I don't feel too guilty.

Thanks, that's interesting to know about. Not sure it would apply to me but I might take a look at it when I get a chance. The issue is solved -- I tested it out with a drive to the store and called up my system and *finally* Maximis isn't "shouting" at me. Thank goodness.

Yep, looks like my old home. I DO miss the mountains (we had about that view you posted above out our back window, and we ourselves were up on about a 1K foot "hill" so no neighbors to obstruct it. That little hill we lived on would have towered above anything in Florida but we didn't think anything of it). But that's the ONLY thing I miss about Nevada (do not miss snow, that's for sure).

Right, you are not. They removed those Navigation Volume controls from the touch screen (the voice commands still are in place for them, although they don't seem to work). The SYNC tech said they removed them because they were trying to simplify things for folks (sigh). I can't get the voice volume down with the audio knob but I'm hopeful that what the tech had me do will fix the issue for all (apparently there is just now the two voice command controls -- one for system response, one for voice prompts OTHER than system, and they look identical so it's confusing as to which is which. Why there isn't just one overall voice response command volume control I don't get).

Ah -- D-man, you WERE helpful (although probably not in the way you think :>). It turns out you are NOT running the latest software, but even having this information was helpful to the Ford SYNC tech I just talked with. He said they removed those volume controls from Navigation, but showed me another place to find them and I was able to get things fixed (I hope -- haven't *actually* tried it out on a real route yet, but I'm very hopeful). I did NOT have to do a reset (and the tech indeed did not feel it was the kind of problem that required that). So, thanks.

No, mine will not. Diesel, you have a completely different system than I do. What version of the NAV system are you running? Mine is 3.48.9, and I am told that is the latest. It does NOT have those two NAV screens you show. The tech I talked with in fact said the only way you can adjust voice commands was by USING the voice command "Navigation Voice Volume Decrease" (or "Increase") which you show as a touch command but does not exist within my system. My hunch is that you have not updated to the latest (and that in the latest they "fixed" things by removing those very useful features, just like they removed the lower case option from Navigation Favorites). Unfortunately, I can't go backwards that I know of (and I suspect I *was* in an older version which did not have the GPS fix, and when they "fixed" that they also screwed up my volume). My only hope is a reset but I'm not all that hopeful.

No, tried that (see above, where I say I turn down the system voice -- and the system voice DOES turn down, just not the turn directions or other, random, prompts). It's wacky and perhaps a master reset will fix it. I'm just loathe to do that right now (there really ought to be some way to save all your settings and then reload them in again. You know, like a REAL computer).

Ah -- just talked with SYNC support. (One interesting thing he did say -- they aren't *really* tech support. Your dealer is your tech support. The SYNC support folks only help interpret the manual for us). About the only thing he could suggest was resetting the system. I will lose everything -- favorites, radio stations, phone pairings, etc. But perhaps it will work. No TSBs out for this issue, but after that I should contact my dealer. Sigh. I guess I will try this, against my better judgement (IMX reboots don't solve many problems except for major system failures). Whether I take it back to the dealer is another thing entirely.

I don't *think* I'm going to get much help here (I can't even get Rebecca to respond to me) but on the off chance that someone has an idea I'll run it by. Ever since they applied the GPS "fix" to my MFT system (and whatever other fixes they may have applied) the turn instructions are WAY too loud. I can't decrease them, not by turning down the system voice, not by using the sound controls on the steering wheel, and not by using the voice command "Navigation Voice Volume Decrease" (although it DOES respond to me as if it is doing so, but then doesn't). I've tried removing the SD card to reboot with no luck. I'd rather not reset the system if I can avoid it, although that might be my last thing to try. I also noticed this morning that making a call to "Services" the voice prompts were also WAY TOO LOUD -- again, with no way to turn them down that I could find. I'm old, but my hearing is still pretty good and this was like someone yelling in my ear. I'd rather not try a dealer solution -- they don't seem to understand MFT much and without the TSBs posted here on the GPS fix I think they would have been lost. If there is a place I can call to talk to a SYNC support person I'll try that (I haven't gone looking too much for that but I will). In the meantime, does anyone have a clue as to what might be happening here (or at least something else I can try)?

Okay, more observations. I tried sending a destination to the car from Mapquest. There's a good thread about doing it here so I won't recap except to note that the "Send to Car" option is NOT available unless you have both a starting and ending point (even though, with the NAV system, it will only use the ending point). It works, although it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to make the call to download the information. I could have spoken the address much faster (although for someone like Wnuk perhaps Mapquest is a much better option). But the most disappointing thing (and the reason I was trying this in the first place) is that although Mapquest allows you to "name" the route sent, the actual name doesn't come into MFT and it's just an address the same way as entering an address is. The disappointment in this is I was hoping I could bypass the limitation of not being able to use mixed case letters in my favorites but because it comes in without a name the best you can do is then enter a name in upper case. Sigh. Again, Ford strikes out. The other odd thing (and this one IS odd) is that it would not allow me to create a name tag of "Sanibel", saying it was too close to an existing command. This is a BIG fail -- Nametags can't possibly conflict with commands since they are fully qualified (IOW, you can't just say "My Home" and have it do something -- you have to say "Destination" first. To my knowledge there is no command after "Destination" that would sound like "Sanibel". Indeed, the only "S" sound after "Destination" is "Street Address" and "Sanibel" sounds nothing like that). Have I mentioned that Ford needs IT folks to be beta?

See, I like her a lot BETTER than Siri (who almost never understands me, particularly when composing a message). Now, obviously the MFT has a more limited set of things it needs to understand, but still I can get it to play even very obscure albums with nary a misstep. And it *never* misunderstands an address from me, or a command (it's ME who forgets the proper syntax but I'll eventually remember -- only so many brain cells left :>). Then again, I have a radio-trained voice and can project on stage without a microphone <bg>. (Although that doesn't explain why Siri hates me -- I think she's just in a bad mood most of the time. Try saying "Are you Her?" and you can get some funny responses, because of the movie).

But when you come back home...

Yeah, all of Florida is so flat compared to where I came from it's silly (I lived 30 years at the base of the Sierra Nevadas with the elevation around 20K. Climbing in a car up to Tahoe was *really* interesting -- would have been fun to try and take the C-Max up there. At least coming down I could have gotten GREAT mpg!)

Interesting that you say this. I've been worried lately (and I HATE to worry) that in looking at others' screenshots they all seem to show more battery than I ever see. About the best I ever see on my battery is about half full, when I see others that look up to 3/4 full. I have 1300 miles or so on Maximis -- but I thought the battery was broken in by now. Should I be concerned or does anyone think this is normal and it will eventually improve? I have to say that, in general, I'm happy with the mileage I can get (I average in the high 40's even with the A/C on with a combination of city and highway driving) but if I'm missing out on something I want it NOW!

Actually, it's "Destination My Home". You can also say "Destination Favorites" and then it will show you a list from which you can say "Line 1" (it's ALWAYS Line 1 if you have a home destination). You can also say "Destination Play NameTags" if you are ever in doubt about what you can say that it will understand (for example, if I forgot whether it was "My Doctor" or "Internist" I could have it read me the list. Although at my age my car can actually drive to my doctor's office by itself :>).

Oh, I'm doing my bit. As I said in another thread, I have a tennis buddy who is going to speak with my Ford salesperson soon, he was so impressed with a ride in Maximis. But it is a bit of a mystery why it isn't getting talked about more. Heck, even *I* remember all the Prius hubbub when it first came out, that's all you ever heard. Why folks aren't clamoring for this vehicle I just don't understand.

Okay, after playing with it some my (final) observations were correct about how you can save to Favorites and edit those. There are a couple more things I'd like to point out (one a complaint). 1. If you want to be able to say your favorite as a destination you have to enable it as a NameTag. This takes a bit of time -- after you do it apparently it has to "build" that tag and for some reason the build is very slow. After it builds it will say it so you can hear it. That part is just fine and while "Nametag" is not exactly a great mnemonic it's adequate. 2. You cannot enter lower case letters for your Favorites. This is a PITA and is a real unnecessary limitation since you CAN get lower case letters in your favorites when you use POI as the source. So I was able to get "Universal Orlando" by editing the POI "Universal Orlando Theme Attractions" (so I wouldn't have to say the whole thing) by deleting the last part, but if I tried entering it myself all I could do would be "UNIVERSAL ORLANDO". Just wrongheaded and dumb and apparently a change from a previous MFT release (so I'm guessing this is something that slipped by beta -- again, this is one of the worst betas I can imagine for this and apparently there is no way to get true IT professionals like myself as part of the beta team).

They don't advertise it nationally much -- if you want all the commercials they have been rolling out (their "Summer Movie Spectacular" or such thingee) there is only one that has the C-Max in it, and only so very briefly it's not clear what it actually is. I hope Ford doesn't give up on this car. I really want to buy the 2019 version of it (about the time I can afford another new car).